


The Best Laid Plans of Angels and Demons

by SisterBlueSky



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Bad at Being an Angel (Good Omens), Character Death, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), DragonCrowley is now a tag, Female-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gen, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), I hope, One Sided Attraction, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), WAIT COME BACK HE'S OKAY I SWEAR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23384086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SisterBlueSky/pseuds/SisterBlueSky
Summary: Crowley wished he had a barrel of wine so he could stick his head in it, but there weren’t wine casks big enough to make this form drunk. He said very patiently, “Angel. Remember those grapes they used to grow on Thera, yeah, the big white ones the size of plums you can’t get anymore since the place blew up.  Delicious, weren’t they. Picture one of them under your heel. Now imagine pressing down slowly, how the skin kind of splits, it makes a little pop and all the juice runs out into the dirt. Now imagine you are the grape.”It was rather amazing how someone so pink and rosy could quickly turn so green. “Good point,” Aziraphale said. “Yes, right. I suppose that’s out.”
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	The Best Laid Plans of Angels and Demons

  
The small group, consisting of a gaggle of rough-looking men nervously clutching sharp implements, a young man in coarse robes holding a staff, and a woman-shaped being dressed all in white, veiled and with flowers in her hair like a bride, staggered up the hill in the rainy dusk. It was rough going. The ground was rocks and slick clay, torn into furrows by the claws of the great beast one of them was going to meet, and the ruts kept trying to turn their ankles. Near the top, but not quite, was a splintery post with a pair of manacles at the end of a chain.   
  
She winced when the oldest man, a grandfatherly type with a magnificent mustache, clamped them shut. She had rather big wrists for a fine Lady.   
  
“I beg your pardon, Lady,” he said, and he really did, but the last time they were up here they had used a rope and the sacrifice, who had a voice like a fishwife and the vocabulary to match, had slipped her bonds and given him a solid thumping about the head and shoulders, and poor Cecil such a kick in the cods that he was still limping. She had made a run for it and nearly got to their horses down in the trees before they caught up with her and dragged her to her fate, and he was too old and they were all too fond of living to go running up hill and down dale after this one with yon bloodthirsty beast somewhere in the murk, ready to gnaw them down to a nubbins. Yea, verily, they did not get paid enough for that. So, chains it was.   
  
He pulled out a scroll and gave a nod to the youngest man, who lowered the staff to the Lady’s face so she could kiss the cross on the end. Unfortunately, his hands were slick and he felt shaky so it landed on the bridge of her nose. She yelped and he muttered an apology. (“Sorry, sorry, new at this.”) He was actually just an acolyte. His master the wandering priest had left in the night when the monster came along, deciding that the Holy Word would be better appreciated two or three valleys away, and he wished heartily that he himself had not been such a heavy sleeper.   
  
The old grandfather turned to bellow up the hill, holding the scroll but not reading it, since he knew the words by heart. “O great and terrible Serpent! Come forth-”  
  
There was a low rumble, felt more than heard. The beast had been awakened, and he wasn’t happy about it. The Serpent spoke quite clearly, but due to the limits of his current corporation all the mortals heard was a series of deep, blood-curdling roars. “Oh for Satan’s sake! Not you lot again! Can‘t a demon get any sleep?!”  
  
The Lady had frozen in place, looking up the hill in terror they all supposed, though it was impossible to see her expression through the veil, the poor soul. Heaven knew their bowels were feeling a bit weak, collectively. The acolyte shared a wide-eyed look with the armed men and in a perfect moment of mutual decision, they all started a slow retreat.   
  
“-and take this sacrifice of innocent blood, given of her own free will.”  
  
“Yeah, sure. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”  
  
“-and in the name of God, depart from this place forever!”  
  
“Right, that’s it! I’m coming down there!”  
  
The slow retreat turned into a headlong rout, fear giving wings to their feet. The acolyte took the lead, hiked up his robes and bared skinny, ghost-white legs to the chilly air, and they slipped and slid down the hill and away for all they were worth, poor Cecil with his bruised cods limping along in the back and whimpering with every step.   
______________

The Lady was sputtering and blowing in an attempt to remove the increasingly damp veil that was plastered to her face, as she felt the heavy tread of the beast‘s approach. “Alright kid, try not to panic, just going to take my claw and get these bloody chains off…aw shit, forgot you don’t speak dragon…well, I’ll be damned, and I am. Hey, Angel! It‘s you!”  
  
“Well, yes,” The Lady, who was actually an angel named Aziraphale, winced and rubbed her bruised wrists. “I knew it was you, I mean, I wasn’t quite sure, your voice is so much more rumbley in this form. I was ninety-nine percent certain.” She took a moment to throw her veil aside and stared. “My word!”  
  
The dragon, who was actually a demon named Crowley, preened a little. “You like it?” His eyes remained the same, serpentine and glowing yellow in the low light, but now they were the size of serving plates and his corporation was a full twenty-five feet long, covered with overlapping scales that gleamed like black glass, four rather short legs, massive feet tipped with enormous silvery claws, and a dark belly with much smaller scales, deep red and glittering like garnets through a sad coating of mud.   
  
“Magnificent,” Aziraphale breathed, and she meant it. “Quite impressive, I must say, if a little old-fashioned.”  
  
“Eh, call it retro.” (Which was a word he had invented just now.) “I got what I wanted to be with my next assignment, someone powerful with a bit of flash.” His lifted his lip and crinkled his snout, the closest expression to a rueful grin his face could make. “Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. What‘s with your outfit? Don’t you usually pick a male corporation?”  
  
“I was in a rush.” Aziraphale looked down at himself, with the wounded expression of someone who bought that trendy expensive outfit at the urging of a fast-talking sales-clerk, only to realize at the most inopportune moment that the clerk had been laughing in their sleeve, and it didn’t make them look a bit like Kate Moss. “I was told the other model was all out of stock.”  
  
Crowley had never been a particularly wrathful demon, (there were plenty of fiends in Hell who had already made it their career and the job market was saturated, ) but he wanted to tear Heaven down to the ground and happily incinerate every mean-spirited bastard in it when they made Aziraphale look so foolish and used and hurt, like an old pup that came wagging over expecting a biscuit and got a kick instead. “It’s not a bad look for you, though, Angel, the whole ‘Fair Damsel in White’ thing, you really pull it off.”  
  
Aziraphale perked up a bit. “You really think so? Oh, that’s so-”  
  
“Don’t say it.”  
  
“…nice.”  
  
Crowley gagged. “Urk. Well, if you’re done insulting me, come on up to my…cave. It’s just up the hill a ways, a bit gloomy but I like gloomy, me, and it keeps the rain off.” 

Crowley’s cave was a quite large and very ancient burial mound that had a reputation as a haunted place and was shunned by the locals long before he appeared. Crowley had dug out the entrance a bit to make it easier to get in, moved the boulder that had sealed it, and hollowed out more space inside for his long body, though he tended to coil up for warmth. He was still a snake, and it was still a tomb, and the dirt floor was cold.   
  
And a trifle lumpy. Aziraphale stumbled over some loose objects that rolled under her feet. “Whoop, steady. Sorry about the mess,” Crowley said. The lumpy shapes were bones of various shapes and sizes, and Crowley flicked them casually aside with a sweep of his tail. “If I had known you were coming I would have tidied up a bit. Feel free to do your ‘let there be light‘ thing, if you like.”  
  
“Err,” Aziraphale said. “Ah, I think my eyes will adjust in time.” She felt a little sick. “Are these…were they…”  
  
“The previous sacrifices? No, just the previous occupants of this barrow.” Crowley said, sounding insulted. “What kind of demon do you think I am? Ugh, that’s just unsanitary. I don’t eat _people_ , Satan knows where they’ve been.” He curled up on the enormous (stolen) feather mattress that was his pillow. It was a lot more comfortable than a hoard of gold and jewels, and the locals didn’t have that sort of riches, anyway. Even the man in the village who called himself king (who was still baffled at the mysterious disappearance of his nice mattress,) didn‘t have much more than some expensive cutlery, the rental income of a lot of rocky farmland, and that glorified hill-fort he called a castle. Crowley stuck out his lip, as much as a dragon could be said to have a bottom lip, in what amounted to a pout.

“I didn’t mean to assume the worst,” Aziraphale said, sitting rather awkwardly in his long skirts on a slab of broken stone and trying not to tip over. (Must the hindparts of this form be so blessedly round?) “But you are a demon, and at the moment, a dragon. What was I supposed to think you were doing?”

“I was assigned to terrorize the shit out of the local population, burn some houses, keep the fear of the old gods in their hearts with the oppressive shadow of my dark and terrible presence blah blah blah. Which was fun at first, but then they started bringing me sheep to devour, then the occasional shaggy old cow, then upped the ante to _virgins_.” And if he ever found out who was directly responsible for that particular brilliant idea, he was going to blight all their crops and curse their progeny with big gappy teeth and male-pattern baldness for seven generations. “No part of my assignment said I had to _eat_ anybody, so I just chased the livestock around for a while then miracled them back to the nearest empty paddock. The people hereabouts are lucky to have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. All they’ve got is sheep, milk, and turnips. It would sort of defeat Hell’s long-term plans if they all starved to death before they could damn themselves.”

“And the maidens?” Aziraphale said, giving him the side-eye. “They’ve never been seen again, and I don’t suppose you put them out to pasture.”

Crowley wiggled his claws in a vague gesture. “Well, they couldn’t go back home, could they, that would ruin my bloodthirsty reputation, so I just sent them…away. To, err, a convent.” 

Aziraphale looked puzzled. “I wasn’t aware of any nearby.”

“Er, oh, yeah, yeah, just started up a few hundred miles away to the south, already a real pain in Hell‘s backside, they are,“ Crowley said. In a time when most people were born, lived, died and were buried in the same village, it was like putting the lost girls on the moon, so there was no worry about some homesick maiden finding her way back. “The girls should be well-taken care of.” 

Crowley was not lying. Exactly. There was a group of monks and nuns in a settlement there-he decided not to mention that they were Satanic monks and nuns- quietly building a house of worship (of Satan.) It wasn’t a necessarily bad place to be, though Crowley himself would rather lick the walls in Hell than spend time there. The Abbot (Bertie or Burl or something,) had invented a game involving two short paddles and a little wooden ball. He never shut up about it and the nuns were mad for it. It was not as though the Satanic monks and nuns were anymore annoying than other Satanists he had run across, (at least they weren’t trying to summon him all the blessed time,) but the constant _tok_ _tok_ of paddle and ball, and the endless flow of empty-headed chatter made him long for discorporation. But they weren’t a bad lot, always ready to welcome new recruits or at least a few helping hands for Their Dark Master, and there were plenty of suitors in the nearby village for the girls who didn’t want to join up. Aziraphale was starting to beam at him, and Crowley needed to nip that in the bud. “And don’t go telling me how nice I am again, alright? I‘m not nice, I‘m awesome and fear-inducing, I struck terror into their hearts.”

“Mm. Yes. I am sure they were quite overwhelmed with goose-bumps.”

“Oh shut up,” Crowley said.

“Did you pack them a lunch?“

“Pack you a lunch,“ Crowley muttered. He wiggled his claws again, the nearest he could get to a demonic snap of the fingers, and there was suddenly a little table with a tidy spread of bread and butter, a piece of cheese, some apples and a cup of warm milk. The angel was lot less snarky when she was full of food. “Pull up a slab and tuck in.”

“Oh, I really shouldn’t.” Aziraphale’s stomach gurgled, and she reached for the butter knife. “But I was quite busy this morning and I didn’t get any breakfast. I was making ready to be the sacrifice, you see, and the poor Princess kept crying and hugging my knees, they finally had to give her wine with herbs and send her to bed, she was so upset. She really is a dear girl, always bringing me little gifts and seeing to my comfort. She is very sweet, surprisingly literate for this area, and kind. And chaste.” Not that there had ever been many suitors. Her father had made the mistake of tying her marriage eligibility to the slaying of the dragon, hoping to attract some noble knight to become his heir and get him some grandchildren to take fishing before he got to old to throw a line. Alas, the Princess was not such a raven beauty that random knights were popping out of the woodwork to risk their lives for her hand, and now she was getting a bit long in the tooth for marriage. (At the ripe old age of twenty-five. He just didn‘t understand humans and their arbitrary matrimonial prospect cut-off points, and their inability to see past a rather ordinary-looking face to the good heart within.) “Heaven had it in mind that she would make a wonderful saint, and a shrine to her would be an inspiration to walk the straight and narrow, attract pilgrims and whatnot. Perhaps even a cathedral someday.”

Crowley had been reclining with his chin on his…paw…watching the angel eat, and now he tried to keep a straight face at the idea of there ever being someone fool enough to waste a cathedral’s worth of resources on this backwater. “And Heaven thought the best way for her to become a saint was to be rescued from a dragon and live happily ever after?”

“No. To be eaten.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Oh yes. What was I thinking. A tragic and grisly martyrdom is much more inspiring. That sounds like a Heaven-type plan, alright.”

“A selfless sacrifice to save her people.“ Aziraphale had an acquired immunity to Crowley’s sarcasm. “But I’ve known the poor girl since she was nineteen, I just couldn’t…if she lives a long, well-lived life full of piety and good works, isn’t that enough to earn a sainthood? Shouldn’t any sacrifice be worthy of a shrine? So I thought, what if I volunteered to give my life in her place. She is the king’s only child, and he’s not likely to sire another at his age, so no one made much of a fuss when her Noble Lady-in-Waiting put her hand up. ”

Crowley was staring with his mouth open. “What the Heaven? What if it hadn’t been me up here? There are loads of powerful demons in Hell who would love an easy, open-ended gig like this, and picking their teeth with an angel’s bones would have been the highlight of their existence! Probably get them a promotion! Bless it, Angel. You don’t even have your bloody sword! What exactly was your plan, anyway?” 

“You would bring that up,“ Aziraphale grumbled, and fiddled with the hem of her gown. “I supposed I would at least afflict the beast with terminal indigestion. And sword or no sword, I am still quite capable of taking care of myself, even without-” She stopped suddenly and snapped her mouth shut. She had that foolish and used look again. 

Crowley had sat up, his unblinking stare boring holes in the angel’s corporation. Whatever the angel didn‘t want to admit, Heaven was at the bottom of it. 

Aziraphale squirmed. “Stop looking at me like that!” She sighed, immediately cracking under pressure. “Oh, alright. I, I was a bit spendthrift with my use of miracles on my last assignment-breaking that drought, saving all the pagan children with the flux even after their parents refused to convert, so I was cut off-”

“Bassstardsss,” Crowley hissed. He knew it. Those sanctimonious, feathery, hypocritical arseholes Upstairs, stranding Aziraphale down here in this place, in this _shape,_ powerless, out of contact with Heaven if the mission suddenly went pear-shaped. The king could have married the angel off to some ham-handed, grubby minion, or taken her for himself, or someone with more than two brain cells to rub together could have noticed in forty years or so that she was actually an ageless, immortal being, and Satan knew that never ended well. Anything could have happened to her!

“ -and told to remain in place until there is a sainthood, or a mortal of great courage and piety makes a solemn vow to Heaven to build a shrine here, or I discorporate, whichever comes first. So, ah, you see I am in a bit of a pickle of my own making. None of those things look likely to happen now. She is not going to be a saint, nor will there be a shrine, and I’m still in the flesh. I have outfoxed myself. Heaven is going to be quite unhappy with me, I’m afraid. Once they get wind of this, I’ll probably be reassigned Above to Miraculous Record-keeping. Forever.”

“Forever,” Crowley said faintly. He looked as though he had just swallowed something sharp and it was stuck in his throat.

“Of course, you could just eat me,” Aziraphale said, her face brightening.

Crowley blinked more in the next minute than he had in the last century. Either he was being insulted, or the angel was trying risqué humor on for size and Crowley had missed everything but the punchline. “Beg pardon?” 

“Devour me,” he said. “Discorporate me! One good chomp should take care of my problems quite nicely.”

“Absolutely not!”

“You’ve done it before.”

And Crowley had done it before, once, a long, long time ago, purely by accident. It had been someplace forgettable in the Holy Land, when it was still just ‘land’. He thought he smelled Aziraphale somewhere in the vicinity, though they hadn’t met before the fighting, still a bit stiff and awkward in each other’s company after that Golden Calf debacle. (Not his fault humans had such a weakness for shiny objects and sin.) It had been a big, chaotic mess, like all battles. Afterwards, when his side had been soundly beaten and the remnants chased into the nearby marsh-lands, he clothed himself in the weapons and armor of Aziraphale’s bunch and went looking for the angel to offer him a congratulatory drink. He found him, too, on his back staring up at the stars and looking terribly surprised, with Crowley’s serpent-headed dagger in his ribs. Heaven and Hell had assumed that they had been viciously offing each other right and left since the Garden, but up to that point it had been more along the lines of the angel ignoring his advice and inadvertently taking one or both of them out of the picture. “Does this cliff-face seem unstable to you? Not a good place for a smiting.” or “Don‘t shout, you‘ll frighten the herd…oops, too late” He had felt sick about it, but knew Aziraphale wouldn’t mourn the loss of that mortal form any more than a man in later centuries would mourn the loss of a newspaper left on a train-station platform. With a bit of time, (and filling out some Heavenly paperwork in triplicate,) he would get another one. It didn’t help that this was right around when Crowley’s own corporation had started to feel less like someone’s borrowed coat he was trying on, and more like something that belonged to him, and he got the cold shivers so bad he had to shift into a snake and hide in the reeds for a long time. Aziraphale had been in a bit of snit about all the bother he had gone through Upstairs to get another corporation the next time they met. He got over it quickly enough, but Crowley had seen the angel‘s gray, startled face in the dark behind his closed eyes for decades. He sure as Heaven wasn’t ever going through all that again. 

“I didn’t bloody well eat you afterwards!” Crowley said. “Besides, did you think what that might do to _my_ digestion? Eating something person-sized and filled with holiness? I’d probably explode.”

“I didn’t know it was _you_.“ Aziraphale looked apologetic. “But you don‘t have to devour me, you could just…step on me?”

Crowley wished he had a barrel of wine so he could stick his head in it, but there weren’t wine casks big enough to make this form drunk. He said very patiently, “Angel. Remember those grapes they used to grow on Thera, yeah, the big white ones the size of plums you can’t get anymore since the place blew up. Delicious, weren’t they. Picture one of them under your heel. Now imagine pressing down slowly, how the skin kind of splits, it makes a little pop and all the juice runs out into the dirt. Now imagine you are the grape.”

It was rather amazing how someone so pink and rosy could quickly turn so green. “Good point,” Aziraphale said. “Yes, right. I suppose that’s out.” 

“We’ll think of something else, Angel,” Crowley said, though blessed if he knew what. “In the meantime, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. It should be quite some time before the humans round up another virgin or two, I expect. They won‘t be back for a while.”

Even the image of the squashed grape hadn’t put the angel off his dinner. They talked for a long while, catching up. They talked about their mutual assignments, which seemed to consist of brief moments of interest, and painfully long stretches of monotony. When he wasn’t ‘working’, Crowley had nothing else much to do than lie around the tomb and wait for Hell's instructions, and in terms of intrigue and stimulating conversation, life in the castle wasn’t exactly the Court of Justinian. Crowley in his monstrous form was beholden to no one but Hell, of course, but Aziraphale owed fealty to both Heaven and, for what it was worth, to the old king, Cadmus Rex, whose roof she was living under. Crowley cackled at the fancy title, which was especially hilarious considering the old man‘s ancestral great-great-granddads probably wouldn't have spit on a Roman if they saw one on fire. (“Ooh, _rex_ , is it? Not too full of himself, is he. Why not _Imperator_?“) They both agreed that the local food was pretty dull and the weather consistently gray and dreary, though Aziraphale insisted the landscape had a certain stark beauty when the sun came out. (“ ‘Sun‘? Is that a thing that happens here? I haven’t seen it yet.”) Finally Crowley yawned and curled up on his mattress. Contrary to popular Celestial opinion, Evil did sleep, as often as he could get away with it. Aziraphale sat quietly, as she tended to do when there was nothing to keep her hands busy, with that eerie, inhuman stillness that gave mortals the absolute heebie-jeebies. She listened to the bass grumbling of the demon’s breathing (Evil also snored,) and watched the rain make a puddle in the muddy entrance to the tomb until gray morning light filtered in.   
_____________

Crowley woke up to the angel rocking him back and forth with both hands like a barrel. “Crowley! Crowley! Someone‘s coming.”

Crowley cursed horribly under his breath. “Already? Why does everyone in these sodding hills get up so blasted early?” He shook himself to his tail like a wet dog, then stretched, flexing his claws. He crept closer to the entrance and peered out. Someone was coming up the hill on foot, a slight figure dressed in odds and ends of ill-fitting leather and metal gear, and a helmet that sat on his head like a coal scuttle. Looked like he fell backwards into a pile of junk and decided to try it on for size. “Probably just some idiot plough-boy with delusions of knight-hood. I’ll go out and scare the knickers off of him.” Crowley gave Aziraphale a cheeky snout-wrinkle over his shoulder. “Got to admit, I do love this bit.” 

“Do be careful,” Aziraphale said. 

The poorly-dressed knight wanna-be approached the post with its broken manacles. He found Aziraphale’s discarded veil snagged on a splinter, sodden and torn, touched it reverently, then knelt in prayer, clutching it to his chest. 

Crowley snorted. “What’s he going to do, pray me to death? I mean, I suppose it’s possible, oh, never mind-Oi, you! Get off my lawn, you little shit!”

This was usually the cue for the intruder to leap up in terror and try to run in ten different directions at once. Always good for a laugh, that. But this time he stood up and drew a sword. He held it in one shaking hand and cried out in a high, trembling voice, “Come forth, murderous beast! In the name of the fair Lady Israfale that I loved I will send thee to Hell!”

“Impressive vocabulary for a kid whose balls have yet to drop,” Crowley said. “They never do get your name right. You know this one, I take it?”  
  
“Errm,” Aziraphale said. “He does seem familiar.”

The figure tore off the wobbly helmet and threw it to the ground, exposing a pale, freckled face, streaked with tears, and a newly-shorn head, shaggy and inexpertly cut with little wisps hanging in her face. 

“Well, bugger me for a lark,” Crowley said. “That’s unexpected. It’s a girl.”

“It’s the Princess Agnes,” Aziraphale said, wringing her hands. “Oh dear, oh dear. She really was so fond of me.”

“’Fond’, my armor-plated arse,” Crowley said. “Look at her face! She loves you! She’s _in_ love with you! How could you miss that? Aren’t your lot supposed to be so all about _feeling_ that sort of thing?”

“I did feel it! I thought it was for the young seamstress from the village who came to make her birthday dress! She seemed very open to the idea!”

“We need a plan.” Crowley jittered about for a minute or two, making every scale tinkle. “Not coming up with anything. You?”

“We had better come up with something soon,” Aziraphale said anxiously. “Once they realize where she’s gone, every soul in the castle and half the village will be rushing to this hilltop, armed to the teeth. Oh dear, oh dear. I suppose there‘s nothing else for it. I will just have to show myself and let the chips fall where they may.”

“Nnnnnnnngk,” Crowley said, with great depth of feeling. “No, no, no, no, nope, terrible idea, unless you really fancy becoming royal consort for the next half-century. Because that’s how it works, yeah? The Fair Lady gets rescued from the dragon and her rescuer gets the Fair Lady. Mazeltov. I’m sure you will live in bliss, at least until Heaven pops in for a surprise inspection and sees how you‘ve fallen down on the job.”

Aziraphale facepalmed. “Oh, _shit_.”

Any other time, Crowley would have teased Aziraphale about the profanity, but yes. _Oh shit,_ indeed. The minutes stretched out awkwardly. Aziraphale fretted, Crowley tapped a claw against his chin thoughtfully. Outside, the Princess stood with sword in hand, brave and resolute, but it was pretty clear her arm was getting tired. “Alright, I have an idea, but you’re going to have to work with me here. Can you trust me, Angel?”

“I suppose I must,” Aziraphale said. She actually grasped one of his claws and they shook on it, without a moment of hesitation, which was another thing Heaven wouldn’t have been happy about but Crowley found very gratifying, so Heaven could stuff it. “Your side won’t give you any trouble about this, will they?”

Crowley looked away, chewing his lip, and seemed to have a silent, worried conversation with himself. “Nah, they love me down there. Past time to move on, anyway, lots more countryside to terrorize. So. I’m going out there and put on a good show, then I’m going to throw some demonic miracles on you to complete the picture. If it all works out I can move on from this rainy shit-hole, and when you finally get somewhere you can draw a circle, tell Heaven the Wily Adversary made it impossible to complete your assignment as planned, curses foiled again, and all that, and ask for an extraction. Stay out of sight until I tell you.” He started toward the doorway, then paused. “Er, how good is she with that sword?”

“Better than you would think,” Aziraphale said. “I gave her some lessons.” At Crowley’s look he added, “She’s a young, unmarried woman with an elderly father in a not-particularly forward thinking part of the world! She needed the skills! You can’t defend yourself or a kingdom with an embroidery needle, my dear.”

Crowley sighed and turned to face the entrance, tail twitching, like a tomcat ready to pounce. “The things I do for you, Angel. You know, if you’re going to continue to get into situations like this, we should put some guidelines in place, so the ledgers balance. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

Aziraphale was tucking herself into a corner next to the doorway. “Some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement, you mean.” She gave a little shudder. “Heaven would certainly have their bowels in an uproar about that!”

Crowley shrugged his scaly shoulders, and wheedled. He was excellent at a wheedle, which was a slight step down from a wile. “It’s not like they’d ever have to know, Angel. Just keep our agreement under your halo and fudge your reports a little. I always do.”

“Because you are a demon,” Aziraphale said. “I am an angel. We do not _lie_ …” (Though she suddenly recalled, uncomfortably, that little fib to the Almighty about her sword. ) “…on our reports,” she added quietly. “Most of the time.”

“Uh-huh.“ Crowley looked highly amused, or at least his tremendous fangs were showing. She’d come around to the idea, eventually. 

“Oh, shut up,” Aziraphale said. 

  
______________________

  
The ‘battle’ was short but intense. Crowley gave it his all, leaping and roaring and tearing up the turf, snapping his terrible jaws, and lunging with his great claws. He even let the sword connect a few times, just for the show of sparks and the ringing clang it made against his scales: He was actually quite impenetrable but for a few hidden tender spots. It was all quite the terrifying performance, if you didn’t notice that his snapping and lunging always fell well short of the target. They went around the post four or five times, enough so even he was panting and the Princess was starting to falter, and splinters flew. He finally pretended to cower and let her drive him back, but away from the tomb so she wouldn’t catch sight of Aziraphale, who kept sneaking little peeks around the corner in spite of Crowley‘s irritated arm, err, leg-waving. 

Finally there was a howl that sounded to angelic ears like “Ow, bollocks!”

It sounded genuinely pain-filled, enough to give Aziraphale a fright. “Crowley! What happened?” Only a push of demonic power smothered the sound of her voice and kept her from rushing out ahead of her cue.

“Nothing! Fine! I’m fine! I’m about to keel over, though! Get ready…and…now!”

Crowley clutched at the sword tucked under his foreleg. There was a tremendous thud as he toppled backward like a felled tree and lay there with his tongue hanging dramatically out of his mouth, feet in the air. Aziraphale couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little, since he looked rather like an old terrier who had fallen asleep in the sun after belly-rubs. 

The Princess only had a moment to collect herself before a glowing figure emerged from the tomb, drifting down to stand before her in a bright and shimmering light, hovering above the mud, gown fluttering. If there was just a tinge of red hell-fire to the glow, Aziraphale hoped it wasn’t enough to notice. She drifted past the Serpent, giving him a strong nudge in the rump with her toe, breathing out a sigh of relief at the resulting annoyed hiss and sub-vocal _Ssstop it._

The Princess lit up. “Israfale!” She held out her arms and staggered forward, as if to embrace her. 

“No!” Aziraphale yelped. She was still quite solid and one touch would give the game away. She added in a softer tone, “No, no, we had better not.”

The Princess’s face crumpled. “Are you…?”

“Ah, sadly, yes,” Aziraphale said, feeling like the cruelest monster that ever was, worse than any dragon. “As a doornail, I’m afraid. Oh, please don’t cry anymore, it was all so quick, I didn’t feel a thing, truly. You were so brave, my dear, you did everything you could. Now, hurry back, and tell the village the dragon won‘t trouble them anymore, off you go, dear.”

The Princess got down on one knee, tears pouring out of her eyes. “Lady, I was never brave enough to tell thee what was in my heart, but from this day I will try to walk in thy footsteps of kindness and love. I will not forget thee, and will speak ever of your courage, and I will build a shrine to Heaven here in thy name. This is my solemn vow.”

“Oh, dear.” Mission accomplished, he supposed, but at the price of a mortal’s broken heart. Without miracles, he couldn’t even bless the poor girl. He deserved a swift kick for making an innocent suffer, but he would probably get a commendation. “My dear child, go in peace.” 

She stood there, glowing, until the Princess had made her way down the hill, with many sad looks over her shoulder, (Aziraphale gave a little wave,) and disappeared into the trees. Then the light went out like a blown-out candle, and Aziraphale was once again just a woman-shaped being in a dirty, tattered gown, with wilted flowers tangled in her hair. “Oh God. I am a bastard.”

“Yup.” There was a grunt and a clatter like clay tiles, as Crowley rolled over. “S’why we get along so well.”

“I’ve ruined her life, Crowley,” Aziraphale said.

“Nah, she’ll be alright, Angel,” Crowley said gently. “She’s young yet, as humans go. Their hearts are stronger than you think, and there’s always the seamstress from the village.” He had thrown a little blessing her way, since the angel couldn’t, for whatever a demonic blessing was worth. That should help. 

“I hope so.“ Aziraphale sighed. “Well, I suppose this is where we part ways. How are you faring after that energetic performance?” 

“Tip-top, Angel.” Crowley sat up on his hind legs, took the sword from underneath his leg and twirled it in his claws like a baton. “Ta-daaaah! It’s the old sword-under-the-armpit, er, foreleg trick. Thought it up myself. Fools ‘em every time. Well, mortals, anyway. Occasionally. Works best on the ones with, er, that one-bad-eye thing.”

"Astigmatism," Aziraphale murmured. She was looking a bit peaky and had her knuckles pressed to her mouth. “Was it part of the plan, bleeding like that?”

Now that she mentioned it, he _had_ felt a little pinch. Crowley lifted his leg and an alarming amount of nice fresh blood (thankfully, quite ordinary and not in anyway demonic,) gushed out to dampen the dirt. Bugger, the one place he didn’t have scales. “Ah, not really. Oops. Must have grabbed the sharp edge.” 

“It’s a sword, you foolish serpent,” Aziraphale said in distress. “All the edges are sharp.”

Crowley did a slow collapse, (not a swoon, demons didn’t _swoon_ ,) just because he really needed a lie-down after all that dodging and weaving, not because he was light-headed or anything. Aziraphale rushed over and he felt her soft, plump hands patting him all over helplessly. “Heavens, that’s quite a lot of blood! You should heal yourself this instant…why aren’t you healing yourself?”

“Can’t,” Crowley said. “Part of the terms of the assignment, one-time use. You break it, you discorporate it. Can‘t have something this powerful running around loose too long outside of Hell‘s control. Kind of a failsafe.”

Aziraphale sat down suddenly, right in the mud, and pulled Crowley’s head into her lap, never minding the unpleasant amount of gore her skirts were sopping up. It was like embracing a large, scaly beer-keg. She smelled good, her arms were soft and warm, and her long curls tickled his ears. They smelled good, too. Her hair, not his ears. Crowley made a surprised sound. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, this is…”

“Nice?” Aziraphale said. Her voice sounded funny.

“Sure, kick a demon when he’s down, Angel.” Crowley rolled his head in her embrace to give her a weary glare from one giant yellow eye. “Petty, I like that.” She laughed, but it didn’t sound all that amused, and her face was getting wet. “Satan, is it raining _again?_ ”

“A little bit.”

“Hope I get assssigned to a better climate after this. Ssssomeplace dry. I hear Hispania…are they still calling it that? Grah, I’ve been here too long. I hear it’s nice thisss time of year. Not like, gray and, and drippy and cold. So boring, nothing to do here, everyone runsss and screamsss, no one to talk to. Can’t even get a drink, or a decent week of sssleep. Ssss’lonely, Angel.” He was aware that he was losing control of his hiss, and also spilling his guts in a way that he would never do if he wasn’t, well, spilling his guts. “My point is, my point…”

“What is it?” Aziraphale urged. Over the millennia she had become an expert at deciphering her counterpart’s demonic rambling, and encouraging it when it faltered. Crowley thought her voice sounded so sad, or maybe not. His ears were starting to ring. He thought her hand might be petting him, but maybe not that, either. He was getting really tired, numb and tingly, could barely keep his eyes open.

“Sssstill sssorry about that time,” Crowley twitched a paw weakly. “With the Calf and you know, the…thing later. Didn’t mean it. Just scared, trying to get away in the dark. Couldn't smell, couldn't see. Didn’t know it was you, wouldn’t have…”

“Shhh. You were just doing your job, my dear.”

Ugh, she still didn’t understand what he was getting at. Maybe he didn‘t either. “My point is…” Well, bugger, he couldn’t remember his point anymore. “Hey. You know? You know? You know what? This is the first time since I started this gig. This is the first time I’ve been warm…”

He gave a long shudder, and Aziraphale held him a little tighter. Eventually she realized that the low rumble of his breathing, like a distant, constant roll of thunder, had quieted and stopped, and that little spark of demonic life-force that felt like clutching a hot coal had gone out. 

Still she sat, though her legs were going to sleep, and she knew she needed to get up and go elsewhere before someone came along and her presence made the Serpent‘s sacrifice meaningless. There would surely be a great lot of the king’s men , and the Princess, and maybe the old king himself, coming to see the evidence of the Princess’s brave deed, and probably to chop Crowley’s corporation apart for souvenirs. His beautiful scales would make a fascinating necklace, or his lovely talons. Maybe she cried a little more at that thought, but it didn’t matter. She just wasn’t quite ready to lay poor Crowley’s head down in the muck, not just yet. 

There was a soft sound, like a far-off chime, and she felt something drift down and land in her hair like a dry leaf. She plucked it out and unfolded it, then gave a damp, resigned chuckle that could have come from Crowley himself. It was a folded piece of fine parchment, glowing with holiness, each letter edged with gold: 

_Hail, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate (demoted.)_

_A COMMENDATION, is pending for the successful completion of your assigned task. Proceed to the nearest settlement wherein reside those of faith. There you will submit a full report and receive your next assignment. Make haste. We need to get the paperwork filed by the end of the Celestial quarter._

It vanished from her hand with a little poof of stardust. Aziraphale got up, slowly and gently removing Crowley’s head from her lap. She wiped her damp eyes on the sleeve of her gown, and took a deep breath, feeling a rush of miraculous power returning. Too late for poor, dear Crowley, but he hadn’t been very comfortable in this shape. She did hope, with everything that was in her, that his stay in Hell would be short and his return to the world swift and in a form of his choosing. Perhaps they would meet then, under better circumstances and they could have a drink and a nice chat, somewhere warm and dry just the way he liked it. She supposed that made her a bad angel, to want to sit in peace with an agent of the Great Adversary and Heaven‘s sworn enemy, but she did wish for that. She wished for that very much.

She held out her hands over his empty corporation and whispered a few words, and it shrank and withered and collapsed, until it was merely a long shadow on the earth outlined with loose, glittering scales for the wind to blow away, and a scattering of fangs and claws. She could do that much for him now, at least. They could see the dragon’s remains and get their tatty relics, but no one would hack him apart, cut off his ears, or hang his head on their saddle.

Aziraphale did stoop and take one very small garnet scale for herself before she left, as a rememberence. She had no idea that she would carry it with her through the ages to come. Fearing the disapproving eyes of both Above and Below she kept it hidden away, even from herself, so long and so well that she (but more often, he,) assumed it had been lost in her travels and forgot it. It was finally rediscovered after the not-quite end of the world in a dusty old box amidst the clutter of a London bookshop, and then at last it rested for good in a silver ring, gracing the hand that she (or rather, he,) was free to hold, now that they were beholden to no one but themselves.

But for now, Aziraphale blew her runny nose on the hem of her garment, and considered where to go from here. _Wherein reside those of faith_. Hadn’t Crowley mentioned a convent in the south? That sounded promising, though Heaven really needed to let him know these things before a mission, and she hadn’t been told a thing about it. She had better get started. The sky was still gray and threatening, Heaven was waiting, and she had a long way to go.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a hilarious, multichapter, fairytale-ish romp. Instead I wrote this. 
> 
> Thera, now Santorini, really did blow up, hugely, and wiped out the Minoan civilization. Considering what was left to history after the big kaboom, they could have had jet-packs and microwave ovens, who knows. If they grew giant, tasty white grapes there, too, one can only speculate. So I did.


End file.
